Canada drops MKO from blacklist of terrorist organizations

The Canadian government says it has removed the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from its blacklist of terrorist organizations.
Ottawa's move to delist the MKO terrorist group followed similar moves by the United States and the European Union.
In September, Washington formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations one week after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move.
The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of terror and violence against Iranian civilians and officials.
Out of the 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, 12,000 of them have fallen victim to the acts of terror carried out by the MKO.
The MKO terrorists fled to Iraq in the 1980s, where they had the support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf in the eastern province of Diyala near the Iranian border. They even helped Saddam to crush the uprisings of Iraqi Kurds and Shias in the 1990s.
The group acted as a spy apparatus for US forces in Iraq after Saddam’s fall in 2003.
SF/MA/AZ